SHOT DETECTIONDozens of Cities Are Paying for Gunshot Detection Tech They May Not Need
A new analysis by The Trace identified cities across the country that are using ShotSpotter despite averaging fewer than one shooting a month in which someone was killed or injured.
In June 2023, the town council in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, voted unanimously to install the gunshot detection service ShotSpotter. The town would get the system up and running in a few square miles of the city using $297,000 in federal COVID relief funding.
“Crime is an issue, but it’s not unique to Phillipsburg,” Councilmember Keith Kennedy said after the vote. “It’s in every town and city around us.” ShotSpotter, which alerts police to shootings through acoustic sensors positioned on lampposts and streetlights, “will be a step toward dealing with crime,” he said.
There’s one thing Kennedy and other city leaders didn’t mention: While gun violence may be an issue in the United States, it has rarely touched Phillipsburg. The town of 15,000 people on the Pennsylvania border has had a total of five shootings in the past decade in which someone was injured or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun violence through media and police reports. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that New Jersey had the second-lowest rate of gun death in the country last year.
So does Phillipsburg even need ShotSpotter?
In a new analysis by The Trace, 62 cities that have installed ShotSpotter averaged fewer than one shooting per month in which someone was injured or killed over the past 10 years, according to Gun Violence Archive data. Of those 62 cities, 43 of them — including Phillipsburg — were located in states that received an “A” grade by the gun violence prevention group Giffords for their strong gun restrictions.
For cities with scant gun violence, strong gun laws, and small budgets, critics say the money would be better spent elsewhere.
“To be perfectly frank, when I hear of some towns purchasing ShotSpotter, I’m confused,” said Eric Piza, a criminology professor at Northeastern University who has published studies on the technology. “ShotSpotter is a tool to more effectively respond to gun violence. A requirement of that tool meeting its goals would be some level of a gun violence problem.”
In a written response to questions, a spokesperson for SoundThinking, the company behind ShotSpotter, said the need for timely and accurate gunfire detection is critical even in low-violence cities.
